


this is your racing heart (can you feel it?)

by phonemicengineer



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, Gen, Post-Episode: s08e10 In the Forest of the Night, but she's alive still so only sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-25 00:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20367361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phonemicengineer/pseuds/phonemicengineer
Summary: Clara Oswald wasn’t built for ordinary wonders. She was built for stars and history and larger than life things.





	1. Post "In The Forest of the Night"

“There are wonders here, Clara Oswald,” Danny had told her, once. 

She knew that. And she had stayed, when the world was going to be burnt up, because it was the right thing to do. The good thing to do. The selfish thing to do. 

She knew what Danny had meant, too. He meant: look at the sky and let the stars be far away, twinkling mysteries. Read a history book and let the stories be lessons, but only from the past. Hear a child laugh, make a small difference, be here, stay here, hold my hand. He meant: your parents led ordinary lives and loved you and were content. He meant: you don’t need him or his box or to know the mysteries of the stars. He was right. 

But he was also wrong. She did need those things. 

“Coronal ejections, geomagnetic storms,” she’d said, and he had failed to see the excitement, the fascination and yearning that filled the cracks in her she hadn’t even know existed. 

“This is enough for me,” he’d said and maybe he did see those things and chose to ignore them. Maybe to him they were as alien as a spaceship hurtling through time and space. 

For her they were no longer an alien thing. Sometimes she wondered if they ever were, or if all her life she had been wandering around with a hole inside of her, a hole that dreamed of the things beyond; the wonderful, dangerous, impossible things. 

She craved them now. She had tried to walk away and they had called to her and she came. Running, always, as though pulled by a string. An addiction, she’d called it, and she hadn’t been able to quit, so that was that. 

Danny thought the Doctor was an officer. The one who lights the fire, he had called him. He didn’t look like an officer, twirling around the Tardis and flashing his coat at her, filling the air with destinations most people could only dream of. It was all a show, of course. No matter the face, he was always putting on a performance, trying to impress her. 

“Doctor,” she said, and he stopped, turning his attention on her. Not his full attention, of course. He was only ever partly present, the rest of him moving at a speed she would never reach. 

But she called to him and he stopped to listen. 

“What?” he asked, “Have I got something on my face? You’ve got a look,” he waved generally at her face, “That sad, funny look. Would you stop doing that?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” she sat up straighter, “Not doing it on purpose.”

“Is it because I mentioned the ocean of mud?” he frowned, his eyebrows drawing together, “Should have known. Never mention the mud ocean! Less fun in practice than it sounds in theory.”

He continued on autopilot, suggesting planets and times and destinations before shooting them down just as fast. That’s why she was here, she supposed. If left to his own devices the Doctor was bound to drive himself in circles for the rest of his life, caught in his own brilliance. 

She knew he’d hated it, when Danny had called him a soldier. He distanced himself from it as much as possible: hating guns, hating violence, always trying to understand rather than kill. He gave everyone a chance. He was kind, constantly, a kindness born of the lack of it in his life, rather than the excess. He was quick to judge but just as quick to reassess. 

The first time they’d met he’d done everything he could to save her. He’d cradled her head as she woke up and told her everything would be fine. He had been so filled with kindness, then, a soothing, tender manner built from time. She couldn’t forget who he’d been to her then, or who he’d been to her every time since. 

Danny had been wrong. The Doctor never lit the fire, even if he did seek it out. But he stood in the center of it every time, solid and determined, until everyone that he could save was safely out of danger. He walked into the flames armed with a box and a screwdriver and his own brain. He stared it down every time because that was who he was. 

And she followed. Because she loved him. Because she wanted to. Because she knew, deep down, that someday the fire would burn her but until that happened she would see something amazing, something impossible, something that no one else would ever get to see.

There was a book, now safely on her shelf at home, that contained all the potential of two life times. Her mother had dreamed of seeing the world and Clara had been born with that same dream, filling her up until the ache was in her lungs, demanding and persistent. She’d seen pieces of the Doctor’s regeneration–light, golden and dazzling, exploding from him in every direction. It felt like that, she thought, this desire that filled her heart and wouldn’t let go. It wanted something impossible.

The Doctor had stormed into her life, as unstoppable as a hurricane, and he had given that to her. And she knew, someday, that he would storm back out, leaving the wreckage in his wake. 

But Clara Oswald wasn’t built for ordinary wonders. She was built for stars and history and larger than life things. And sometimes, when the occasion arose, she was built for saving the world.


	2. During "Hell Bent"

He hadn’t cried. 

She knew as soon as she saw him, wild with grief and anger, raging at the Gallifrayan workers like it would stem the hurt she could see leaking from every bit of him. Even through the panic and bewilderment of being abruptly pulled from her death she knew. She was here now and he was desperate to keep her and he hadn’t cried. 

It was an absurd thought to have. She hadn't expected him to, really. She hadn't needed him to. But she had cried, after Danny died. There were a few days when she couldn’t leave her bed for the awful, wracking sobs that would pour out of her. She didn't know if that was better than the dull emptiness, the days when she couldn’t feel much at all. 

It still caught her, sometimes. It was always unexpected: a thought she wished she could share with him, something that reminded her of him, a sudden bone-deep ache for the warmth of her hand in his. No matter what it was it froze her, left her locked up and blind with pain, unable to breathe. She wondered if she’d ever learn to live with it, learn to keep her lungs moving while the rest of her body wanted to curl up as small as possible. She wondered if she’d hate her lungs for breathing even when his weren't. 

Then she remembered the raven and thought _oh_, small and sharp. 

It wasn't just the crying, though. He looked like something had been taken out of him. The Doctor had always moved easily into anger, took it on and off like a cloak, but he looked worn out, like he had nothing left to feed it with but himself. 

_Eating him up inside_, she thought, and imagined flames crawling up the walls. The Tardis may have been metal and space magic but only to shield the fact that the Doctor was made of tinder. 

“Nearly four billion years,” he told her. She wondered how much of himself had burned away while he tried desperately to save her, slowly suffocating in the smoke. 

She thought of throwing keys into lava and sorrow that had filled her until she was drowning in it, only the water in her lungs keeping her from screaming. 

“Do you remember the first place you took me?” She asked, quiet in the cavernous space of the archive. 

The Doctor glanced at her, there and away again, not meeting her eyes. She knew that feeling. It was how she had felt hearing Danny’s voice over the computer: the clawing fear of waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for the trick to be revealed. 

“We went to the Festival of Offerings,” he said, just as quiet. He didn't elaborate like she thought he would, just kept working on the secret exit. 

“Right,” she agreed, “And you nearly died sacrificing your memories to an evil star.”

“I didn’t-“ the Doctor huffed, half way to an indignant rebuttal before he stoped himself. She smiled at him, fond, but he looked away from her again. 

She thought about how she wanted to say this, letting the familiar sound of the sonic fill her head. It wouldn't be easy, but he needed to hear this. And, after all, who knew the Doctor better than her?

“You wanted to give it this, didn’t you?” She asked, and he finally stoped his work and looked up at her, his eyes sad and resigned. 

“Gallifrey, the Time War,” She continued, ignoring the way her chest felt full of glass, suddenly, sharp and likely to stab her in a vital organ. “All the people you’ve lost. And now you’ve lost me.”

“I haven’t lost you,” the Doctor objected fiercely, his hand twitching on the screwdriver. 

She smiled at him and felt the sadness in it as she did, “You have, though. I died nearly four billion years ago, you said it yourself.”

He opened his mouth to say something but she grabbed his hand before he could, holding on tighter than she meant to. So many times she had told him to remember her, all through time, all through his history. The words were there, familiar to her. _Run you clever boy–_

“I want you to know that it’s okay if you forget,” she told him, meeting his eyes when he wouldn't do it for her. She meant for the next part to come out strong but it sounded hoarse and soft instead, “I’ve started to. I don’t remember exactly what his laugh sounded like. His clothes don’t smell like him anymore. I’m losing him, in pieces, slipping away from me.”

She squeezed his hand harder because he needed to understand, “I want you to know. It feels like the worst thing in the world and it hurts like hell. But it’s okay. It’s okay to forget me.”

“You’re crying,” he told her, sounding distant, removed from himself. She reached up to wipe at her eyes and found that he was right. 

“Why are you crying?” He asked, and she didn't think he sounded as angry and Scottish as he probably wanted to, “You’re eyes are doing the thing where they take up your whole face, why are they doing that?”

“They’re for you,” she said, and the words would be a sob if she could remember how to take deep breaths without shattering her insides, “I’m crying because you won’t, Doctor. And you don’t have to, I promise, I _know_ it’s different for everyone.”

She brought their clasped hands up, needing something to anchor herself, “But you, Doctor. I don’t think you’d let yourself, even if you really needed to. So I’m crying for both of us. For everything we’ve lost.”

He was quiet for a minute as the tears poured out of her, silent and unstoppable. 

“I haven’t lost you,” he told her again, quieter this time. He had, she knew he had, but he wouldn’t listen so she just laughed, terribly bright for how fragile she felt. 

He met her eyes, then, for the first time since he pulled her from the street she was supposed to die on. 

“And I won’t forget you, Clara Oswald,” he said, “I promise.”

“I know,” she said, even though she knew he was wrong. Because that was just it, wasn't it. Rule one of traveling with the Doctor: the Doctor lied. Even if the person he was lying to was himself. 


End file.
